The Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America said today that it will fiercely oppose any attempt by Gov. Tina Kotek to pause collection of Multnomah County’s Preschool for All tax, or reduce the tax rate on the Portland region’s highest earners.
”Governor Kotek is declaring war on preschool. She is sacrificing the future of Oregon’s children so that her rich friends stop yelling at her,” Olivia Katbi, co-chair of Portland DSA, said in a statement. “This is an unacceptable capitulation to the demands of Oregon’s rich and super-rich, whose feelings have been hurt by being required to contribute to the society that made it possible for them to get so very rich.”
In Kotek’s letter to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, which WW first reported on Wednesday, the governor expressed concern that the county taxpayers shoulder the second-highest tax marginal tax rate in the nation. She pointed to a three-year decline in tax revenues from high earners as a signal of taxpayer flight that could hamstring an economic rebound for the city and the state…